crauen

Thanks everyone this is really great advice. Leaning towards doing the Bliss based upon the posts above and having more kid activities for our 9 year old. Going to make sure we pack carefully with rain gear, hats, etc. @YVRteacher I totally get the whale thing as we often travel to Maui in the winter (we live the San Francisco Bay Area) so we know the whales won't be around yet. It's a long swim even if you are a whale 🙂.

We looked at the one way cruise with longer port stops but they don't start until later in April (and several run Monday to Monday or Wednesday to Wednesday which we can't make work with a one week Spring Break). My son's Spring Break is the first full week of April so we are looking at Encore RT from Seattle or the Sun and we were thinking th Sun due to the smaller ship and less crowded excursions. We are not too concerned with the port times as are most excited about Skagway which is a full day and Glacier Bay. Thanks for all the good insight and advice!

My family is looking at booking and Alaska cruise in early April 2024 (7 day round trip from Seattle on Norwegian Sun with Glacier Bay). Does anyone have any experience with Alaska that early in the season? We know it will be chilly and are experienced skiers with thermal gear, appropriate underlayers and shells etc. but we wanted to know if port activities, excursions shops, etc would be open that early in the season as it appears most other lines don't start Alaska cruises until late April or May. We are scheduling around our kids spring break so can't do later in the Spring (and have an obligatory family trip in the summer so can't cruise then either). Thanks for any and all tips and insights!